"Pappy," Terry Claar, was the girls' grandfather. Living next door, he was always nearby, going to soccer games, playing in the yard, just being there.
A retired coal miner, he had gone into the hospital but seemed on the mend. Yet on Nov. 2, 2007, sitting at home, he died.
"He just slipped away," remembers Terry Claar's daughter, Jolene Sawinski. "It was devastating."
And those who hurt the most included her daughters — Olivia, 8; Emma, 5; and Josie, 2. To help with their grief, they went to the Home Nursing Agency's Healing Patch in Ebensburg. A Center for Loss and Hope for Grieving Children and Their Families, Healing Patch — which receives funding from the Highmark Foundation through Highmark Healthy High 5 — has branches in Cambria and Blair counties.
Ms. Sawinski, a home nursing agency employee, knew about the program and knew that her family needed it.
The Sawinski and Freiwald families turned to the Healing Patch in Johnstown for grief support and healing following the loss of father and grandfather, Terry Claar. The extended family is shown.
"Olivia, my oldest daughter," she says, "had a hard time with it. She was in disbelief — she couldn't believe that Pappy wasn't there. She had trouble sleeping. She had a panic attack. She was quiet and withdrawn. If she was outside playing, she'd come inside and cry and say, 'I miss Pappy.'"
In April 2008, the Sawinskis went as a family. Meeting weekly, they'd start with pizza and subs, then break up into groups for peer-group support — kids by age, adults together. They learned how to work through their emotions. They made memory quilts and memory boxes, Olivia's with pictures of Pappy and her.
Volunteers also made the girls memory bears wearing a pocket T-shirt the way their Pappy did.
"The bears help the girls even now," Ms. Sawinski says. "If they get upset, I say, 'go hug your Pappy bear.'"
"Healing Patch helped all of us," Ms. Sawinski adds.
As for Olivia, "She knows there are other kids who feel the same way. She knows it's not embarrassing to cry and say she misses Pappy."
Learn how to help a grieving child cope with loss by reading our Grieving pages.
Learn more about the Highmark Caring Place.
This story was originally published in an April 5, 2009, advertising supplement for Highmark Healthy High 5.